Lough Oughter confident ahead of Ulster minor final

We can be sure of one thing - there will be goals!

Lough Oughter ladies minor footballers will travel to Emyvale on Sunday morning to face Bredagh from Down in the Ulster final. On their path to Sunday’s final the Cavan champions have scored 13 goals in two Ulster games while their opponents have hit 24 in three games.  

Lough Oughter is an amalgamation of Cornafean, Arva, Killeshandra and Drumlane and they are in their second year competing together. 

That may seem, at first glance, an unusual combination but Cornafean ladies chairman Philip Wilson explained how it came about. 

“Cornafean had six minors last year and Arva/Killeshandra had six and that’s counting their last year 16, 17 and 18 year olds. So we decided to join together and we still hadn’t enough as such but we were going to go ahead anyway and play a few younger ones to make up numbers,” Wilson told The Anglo-Celt. 

“The night of the (county board) meeting Drumlane asked could they come with us? So I said it would depend on what the board said but for me, it was the more the merrier.” 

Wilson is confident that the team can get over the final hurdle this Sunday. Manager Declan Beard, a SFC medallist with Ballinagh, has prepared them very well and they have been in fine form of late.

“Everyone’s fit and ready to go,” said Wilson. 

“I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win it. Our crowd can beat any team in ten minutes if they play well. If they just click for ten minutes, they’ll beat anyone.”

To win the county title for the second year in a row is a significant achievement but such is the strength of ladies football in Cavan it was very never going to be easy. 

“They shouldn’t have beat Crosserlough in the county final basically but they won it in a five-minute spell in the second half.” 

Between Lough Oughter and a first Ulster title stands the champions from Down, Bredagh. 

“They're a big club,” Wilson continued “they were in the (Ulster) minor final in 2016 as well. So it’s their second final in three years. They played Kinawley (Fermanagh) in the first round and St Eunan’s (Donegal) in the quarters and they hammered both of them. 

“They beat (St Trea's) Ballymaguigan of Derry by 27 points but we played Ballymaguigan last year and beat them by 40 points in the quarter-final.”   

The Ulster campaign started on November 11 where Lough Oughter faced Clann Eireann and won by nine points in a high scoring thriller.

“They had a great win against the Armagh champions. That team got beat by two points last year in the Ulster final and shouldn’t have got beat and they had 13 of the team underage again this year. They were sure they were going to win it.”

That victory is all the more impressive because Lough Oughter, who won their second Cavan title in a row this year, went out at the semi-final stages in Ulster last year after a 12-point defeat at the hand of Clann Eireann.

Next up it was the Ulster ladies powerhouse from Monaghan Donaghmoyne in the semi-final but once again the girls from Lough Oughter came away comfortable winners on a score line of 6-7 to 1-5. Among those to star in the semi-final were attacker Sinead McDonald and freetaker Amy McIntyre while Deirbhile McCaffrey should be fit to take her starting place.

They and their manager, who brought the Cornafean ladies to the club Ulster final in 2017, will be hoping to go one step further on Sunday. 

Throw in is at 1.30pm.